It Takes A Village To Find Your Tribe

Village Mommy is sort of like a dating site— play dating, that is.

Still in its Beta phases, this online platform connects “…moms in your area with kids the same age and more.” Cool, right? Right off the bat the concept of being able to connect with a village of moms and develop the community you want for your kids is appealing, but I can only imagine how amazing this would be for families moving to new neighbourhoods or stepping into the role of motherhood for the first time.

Two years ago I was excited to move to a new home. You could hardly call it a big switch (we were moving 3 minutes away) but so much changed for my then 5 year old. A new school, new friends— her life (and that meant mine) was turned upside down. It would have been amazing to have a place like VillageMommy.com to explore before I spent sleepless nights worried about her socialization…Um, and mine.

Even if you’re not planning a move, we all know that at one point or another parenthood can bring with it isolation. There’s always that phase where it’s just you and the kid(s) for hours or even days at a time, you have little to no adult interaction, and when you do see another person your age it’s you and your partner throwing quick high-fives before you trade off so you can finally go to the bathroom before you both pass out.

And I’m not even going to get started on how great this could be for single moms or moms with disabilities or whose children have special needs.

Moms who need that extra dose of support are often more stressed about how their kids will adjust and grow but guess what? VillageMommy.com is on top of that too— according to their site, studies show that support from ‘mommyfriends’ helps children thrive and that seems deeply integrated into their mandate.

Now no matter what kind of mama you are, there’s a way to build your tribe and have some contact on line and IRL during those ‘feels like forever’ times. And with the site being a member of the YMC Community (yes, the same YummyMummyClub.ca that I used to write Trying Times for!) you can be confident that they don’t use the word ‘community’ lightly. This is the real thing.

I personally want to see if there are any other mamas out there who have chronic illnesses like I do, so I can learn from them and see if we can band together to collectively kick ass and discover our superpowers.

How It Works

You head to VillageMommy.com, you fill out a profile, and then find and meet moms near you based on childrens’ ages, parenting style, interests, languages and more. You don’t have to deal with comments and interactions like you do in certain social media groups— you pick and choose your friends and have complete troll-free control. I’ll be posting a video of me exploring the platform and setting up my profile soon— watch it and then log in and try it yourself!

I’ll be ‘playing’ with other Village Mommies over the next month and reporting back to you about my findings so stay tuned.